


the case of the worn out skates

by jedikhaleesi



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 02:31:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15184793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedikhaleesi/pseuds/jedikhaleesi
Summary: Four years ago, after the Empress Shizuka was murdered, her brother and heir apparent Daisuke forbid his twelve other siblings from competitive skating and only allowed them to skate once a week. Yet somehow, they wear out their skates at an incredibly fast pace by disappearing to a mysterious place each night. In desperation, he sets a challenge: anyone who can figure out where they go can marry one of his siblings.Shoma just wants to skate.A 12 Dancing Princesses AU, featuring Imperial Family Team Japan, the King of Chanada, Lord of the Quads Nathan Chen, and of course - Yuzuru Hanyu.





	the case of the worn out skates

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting in my Drive since last August, and I figured I might as well just let other eyes see it. 
> 
> If you're not familiar with the tale, there's a brief explanation at the end.

The first challenger was the king of Canada. He arrived before noon without an entourage and only his horse for company, as Dai had instructed. On his horse, King Patrick loomed above them all, but once he dismounted, Shoma saw that he was only two inches taller than Dai.

“King Patrick,” Dai said, followed by a deep bow that everyone imitated, “We are honored by your presence.”

King Patrick nodded. “Emperor Daisuke. It’s good to see you again and to finally have the opportunity to meet all your siblings.” He looked expectantly at Miki, who was standing to Dai’s right with her daughter in front of her. Acquiescing to his implicit demand, Miki bowed and introduced both herself and Himawari. Next was Kanako, then Keiji, then Rika, and then Shoma managed to choke out his name before Satoko gave up on waiting for him to introduce himself. When all twelve of them had greeted him in turn, King Patrick smiled. “It’s wonderful to meet you all,” he said politely. “I hope to get to know you over the next three days.”

“And I hope I get to know where these rascals have been going every night at the end of those three days,” Dai joked. “Please, come inside, King Patrick.”

King Patrick was nice but boring. He was also uninterested in Shoma and his siblings, which, considering that marriage to one of them was supposed to be his prize, probably meant he wouldn’t try very hard to figure out where the twelve of them went every night. That meant they were safe for the next three nights.

They had decided that Kanako would stay behind to share one last glass of wine with King Patrick before she “went to bed”, and when he fell prey to the sleeping draught in it, she would catch up to them. The plan worked so well that she joined them while they were still descending the staircase that connected Shoma and Keiji’s room to the forests below.

“That was fast,” Shoma commented when Kanako appeared by his elbow.

She shrugged with a mischievous smile on her face. “He likes his wine.”

They passed through the silver forest. Despite having walked the same route each night for several months now, everyone still fell into an awed quiet at the sight of the tall silver trees. Kanako reached up, touching some of the lower leaves, and Shoma dragged his fingertips across the smooth bark of every silver wonder. After ten minutes, gold trees began to appear interspersed with the silver ones.

“We’re in the gold forest now,” Keiji called from the front of their group. “Ten more minutes and we’ll be at the lake!”

At the mention of the lake, Shoma sped up immediately. Kanako giggled as she easily matched his pace. “Excited?”

“I’m always excited to skate,” he answered, clutching his boots protectively. They were barely holding together, but he was hoping that they would last one more night before he had to fix them again, or worse, ask Dai for a new pair. That was how this whole mess with the challengers had started: Dai was simply tired of replacing their skating boots, and was tired of not being told how they were going through boots so fast.

They emerged from underneath the forest and into gentle sunlight. In front of them, the lake stretched out as far as the eye could see. The sun glistened on its smooth, frozen surface. Miraculously, the ice was always flawless when they arrived, even though they never did any maintenance or saw anyone doing maintenance.

Hurriedly, Shoma toed off his shoes and laced up his boots before stumbling onto the ice. Keiji whizzed past him, moving through a step sequence, and Mai’s joyful laughter resounded from thirty feet away as she and Kaori twirled in sync. Shoma skated lazy laps, watching his siblings enjoy themselves, and tucked the moment away in his heart.

“What are you working on tonight, Shoma?” Marin asked, skating up to him as he continued his laps. “I don’t know what I want to work on.”

“I want to run through my programs,” he answered after a moment’s consideration. “I have to perform for King Patrick tomorrow.”

“Yes, I remember. I’m performing too!” Marin laughed at his confused expression. “Oh Shoma, you’re so forgetful! But you have good ideas. I’ll run through my programs too.” She skated off towards an empty section of the lake.

When it approached three AM, Miki rounded them up and shooed them off the lake. They trudged back through first the gold and later the silver forests, tired but happy. Shoma felt worn out, but in a good way. He yawned, then yawned again. He was looking forward to going to bed.

Going up the staircase was significantly harder than going down, but he made it. He immediately fell onto his bed. As his siblings passed by to go to their own rooms, they each whispered good night to him. In between yawns and forcing his eyes open, he whispered it back.

“Good night, Shoma,” Keiji said, leaning over to turn the lamp off now that everyone had left.

“Good night, Keiji,” he answered.

It seemed like he had just closed his eyes when he was being shaken awake. “Shoma, get up!” Keiji hissed. “It’s 9:30! You’re going to miss breakfast!”

At the last sentence, Shoma sat up so quickly that he almost bumped heads with his brother. They might be royalty, but breakfast always ended at ten, no matter what. He took the fastest shower of his life, brushed his teeth, and ran down to the dining hall.

When he entered, all his siblings and King Patrick were already seated at the table. His face heated up in embarrassment.

“Did you have a good night’s sleep, Shoma?” Dai asked from the head of the table. Shoma nodded at the floor and scrambled to sit in his usual spot between Kanako and Mai. Both of them giggled as he sat down and fumbled with his chopsticks. His face felt like it was on fire.

“Shoma will also be performing today,” Dai told King Patrick. “That is, if he doesn’t fall asleep while waiting for his turn.” Shoma’s face heated up even more. “Did you know,” Dai continued, with pride in his voice, “that Shoma landed the first ratified quad flip in the world? Of course, you remember me two-footing the landing that one time so many years ago. Shoma, though, he pulled it out for the performance held in Queen Yuna Kim’s honor just a year ago. We were all amazed.”

Shoma smiled, embarrassed, into his plate of rice and meat. Dai had one story for each of his siblings that he told all his visitors. For a year now, the story he told about Shoma was the quad flip one. It was a much better story than the one he had used to tell, which involved a microphone, a reporter, and a twelve-year-old Shoma’s commentary on skating.

“That’s very impressive,” King Patrick said. “I can only do the quad toe and the quad sal myself.”

“Your quad toe is very nice,” Shoma blurted out. King Patrick was an amazing figure skater. Shoma and his siblings had watched him perform several times, especially when Dai had still been competing. Dai had only been crown prince then. They had all been allowed to skate competitively back then. But times had changed, and now they couldn’t skate unless in front of anyone but important visitors.

“Thank you,” King Patrick said, a little taken aback by the rice that had flown out of Shoma’s mouth. “I look forward to seeing you perform today.”

As King Patrick drew Marin into a conversation about her photography, Kanako leaned over and whispered, “I think you should do your ‘La vie en rose’ routine today. King Patrick likes songs like that.”

Shoma nodded. The Swiss ambassador Stephane Lambiel, renowned for his stylish skating, had choreographed that routine for him as a gift, but it was not his favorite to perform. Today, though, he was not performing for himself, so he acquiesced easily to Kanako’s suggestion.

They dispersed a little after ten. Keiji forced him to study for two hours, and then they rejoined their siblings for another tedious lunch with King Patrick. It was getting harder and harder to make conversation with him, but that could have been Shoma’s desire to take a nap speaking. Afterwards he took that much-needed nap and barely managed to wake up in time to grab his skates and his costume before Keiji hauled him down to the outdoor rink.

When Shoma was little, the outdoor rink had seemed impossibly big. Now, he skated on a lake whose expanse never ended, which naturally made the palace’s outdoor rink seem very small.

The instance he stepped on the ice, something felt off. He looked down and realized that his boots were, once again, falling apart. Shoma gestured hurriedly to Keiji, who was sitting in the stands, beckoning him to please come over. Keiji glanced at Dai, and when the emperor was looking away, got up from his seat and came over to the side of the rink.

“Do you have duct tape?” Shoma asked in a low voice. Keiji nodded and pulled a roll out of his bag. The first crack of the duct tape as it was peeled away from the roll caught Dai’s attention. Shoma smiled sheepishly at his oldest brother’s narrowed eyes and taped his boot together firmly. He made a mental note to visit the market as soon as possible so that he could buy boots on his own without having to ask Dai. 

His routine went well. It was definitely worthy of being scrutinized by King Patrick. Satoko smiled at Shoma as she skated onto the ice and he skated off. When he entered the imperial box, Kanako high-fived him. Dai smiled at him, pleased, but when his brother’s eyes flicked down to his boots, Shoma knew that they would be talking later.

Sure enough, after dinner, Dai pulled him aside. “Shoma,” he asked, “do you need new skating boots?”

“Yes,” he mumbled hesitantly.

“Shoma, how are your boots worn out this fast when you’re only allowed to skate once a week?”

Shoma pressed his lips together tightly. He felt guilty about not being able to tell Dai the truth, but this was the only way they could skate. “I just wear them out very fast, I guess,” he said. It sounded like the lie it was.

He could feel Dai’s eyes boring through his head as he stared down at the ground. He watched his brother tap his foot against the tiled floor. After a few minutes, Dai sighed impatiently. “I suppose I’ll only find out if King Patrick does.”

Shoma looked up. Dai was smiling gently at him. He felt his mouth twitch upwards in response. At the end of the day, Dai was still the big brother Shoma always looked up to.

Two more nights passed uneventfully. King Patrick must have been someone who really enjoyed wine, because Kanako’s ruse was successful every time. The morning after the third night found King Patrick riding away from the palace by himself, just as he had arrived. Kanako smiled triumphantly as they watched his horse disappear over the horizon.

When King Patrick’s red cape disappeared, Dai said, “Honestly, I’m glad to see him go. He’s in love with Queen Kim of Korea anyways.” He turned back towards the castle, threading his arm through his wife Mao’s, and said, very casually, “The next challenger should be here tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh,” Sota groaned, loudly enough that Dai raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, I can’t wait to meet them!”

* * *

The next challenger was an American noble named Nathan. He was a year younger than Shoma but full of swagger in his step. He didn’t smile, only smirked. Shoma was not particularly inclined to like him, but Lord Nathan turned out to be polite and easy to converse with, if a little inclined to mumble. Like King Patrick, he was also a competitive figure skater, but none of them had watched him perform before. However, he had apparently watched them perform.

“I thought the step sequence from your tango two years ago was nice,” Lord Nathan told Kanako.

“Do you have any tips for the quad flip?” he asked Shoma.

Then, entirely out of line for the character he had portrayed thus far, he said to Mai very shyly, “I really like watching you skate.”

“I think I know who’s going to convince him to drink the sleeping draught tonight,” Kanako said, tapping her chin. Her smile was devilish.

“You can’t put it in wine this time,” Keiji said. “He’s not legal to drink in his country. We don’t want to set off an international incident.”

Kanako frowned. “Maybe we can put it in tea. Do Americans drink tea? I remember learning about how they dumped a bunch of tea into the sea once.”

“If Mai’s the one offering it, I’m sure he won’t refuse,” Miki said.

Miki was right. That night, Mai came back to Shoma and Keiji’s room with two empty mugs and a guilty look on her face. “I feel bad about this,” she admitted. “He’s very nice to me. I like him.”

“We can’t take any risks,” Kanako said. Satoko patted Mai on the shoulder reassuringly. “He’s very determined. It’s only for two more nights, Mai. Then you don’t have to do this anymore.”

She nodded, still looking a little sad about it, but her mood improved drastically when they reached the lake and started skating. She was very focused during that ice session, undoubtedly thinking about Lord Nathan’s compliment. It was a shame she wasn’t performing for him during his stay. That probably would have alleviated her guilt.

The next morning, Lord Nathan seemed irritated at himself. When Dai asked if he’d made any progress, he mumbled a sullen “no”, but then perked up and said, “But I will today!” Then he asked if there was a rink he could practice on. Dai promised him the use of the outdoor rink before the afternoon performance, but Lord Nathan refused to accept the invitation until Dai allowed Shoma and Mai to skate with him. That was Shoma’s first lesson in American stubbornness. It gave him sanctioned ice time twice in one week, however, so he wasn’t going to complain.

Next he had a lesson in American intrusiveness.

“I used to see at least one of you at every competition,” Lord Nathan said. “Up until about four years ago, I think. What happened?”

Shoma felt his entire body tense up. Mai froze. “We don’t like to talk about it,” he said tightly. The rest of the world had already made its assumptions about why the Japanese imperial family had stopped skating competitively. Had no one told Lord Nathan?

“Oh. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s all right,” Mai said quietly.

Despite being outdoors, Shoma felt suddenly confined. His body felt too stiff, and his mind was in shambles. He skated furiously around the rink, gathering speed, and then launched himself into a triple axel. The landing was a little shaky, but the jump was there. He had trained the jump so he could finally catch up to the leaders of the junior division, but then everything had happened and he had been forced, abruptly, to give up competitive figure skating. He jumped another triple axel to reassure himself.

“Hey, man,” Lord Nathan said after the third axel, “I’m really sorry about intruding like that. That wasn’t cool of me.”

“It’s all right,” he muttered, not really meaning it. Beside him, Lord Nathan cleared his throat awkwardly, then asked, “If you’re doing jump practice, could I see your quad flip?”

“Oh.” The request was flattering. “Sure.”

After the practice session was lunch. Yuna forced Mai to switch spots with her so that the latter was sitting by Lord Nathan. Dai smiled fondly and let it happen, despite it disrupting the usual seating order.

Lord Nathan was considerably easier to make conversation with. King Patrick had held himself apart, never really engaging himself in the conversation or any of the activities. The only time Shoma had seen a hint of a passionate, interested person was during the skating performances. King Patrick had watched them avidly and cheered and clapped as loudly as Dai. Lord Nathan, however, was genuinely interested in getting to know all of them and learning about every inch of the imperial palace. Shoma was a little sorry that they couldn’t bring him to the lake.

“I don’t think Lord Nathan will drink the tea again,” Satoko whispered to him that afternoon. On the ice below, Wakaba executed a lovely Y-spin.

“Why do you think that?” he asked, shooting a quick glance at Dai. Luckily, their brother wasn’t paying attention to them.

“He suspects the tea,” Satoko whispered. “I saw him down in the kitchen this morning talking to the chef. The chef was holding tea bags.” She paused. They both glanced at Lord Nathan, who was still entirely focused on Wakaba’s program. “He’s smart. And determined to figure out where we go every night.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We have to put the draught in something else. Food, maybe.”

“We’d have to make it ourselves, then.”

“I could make it,” Satoko suggested. “When the performance is over I’ll go down to the kitchens and make - I don’t know, cookies.”

“That sounds good.”

Satoko’s cookies turned out well. They turned out so well, in fact, that she had to slap Kanako’s eager hand away from the platter several times. Mai was sent to Lord Nathan’s room with a full platter and came back with it half empty.

“He fell asleep while eating one,” she said. “These worked really well.”  
Satoko smiled, pleased. She made another batch the next day, and sure enough, that batch came out well too. Lord Nathan never had a chance.

“So, Lord Nathan,” Dai asked on the fourth morning, as Lord Nathan stood outside the palace, ready to leave, “do you know where my siblings go every night?”

“No, I don’t, Your Majesty,” Lord Nathan admitted. Resignation weighed down on his shoulders, and disappointment shone in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”  
“Well, that’s quite alright,” Dai sighed. “They’re a sneaky bunch.”

Instead of turning to go, Lord Nathan asked, “Your Majesty, may I ask you something?”  
“Of course,” Dai said, surprised but curious.

“Typical Americans,” Kanako muttered. “They always want more.” Keiji smacked her on the arm, but her words had already caught Dai’s attention. Lord Nathan, however, appeared not to have heard. He shuffled awkwardly, fidgeting with the reins of his horse.

“May I court your sister Mai?”

Instantly, everyone turned to face Mai, whose mouth was open in a comical O. Her cheeks were turning red as they continued to stare at her.

“Well, Mai,” Dai said after a few moments, “can Lord Nathan court you?”  
“I- um- yes!” she said, hands fluttering. “Yes.”

“There’s your answer,” Dai told Lord Nathan. The latter’s face broke out into a wide, genuine smile. “But for now, off you go. I believe you told me that you intended to return to America for a few months. My sister will still be here when those months are up.”  
Lord Nathan rode off into the distance with a smile on his face and many glances back towards them.

“I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of him,” Dai sighed. “He’s a good kid. Much easier to talk to than King Patrick, that’s for sure.”

“I wouldn’t mind him for a brother-in-law,” Kanako declared. “I look forward to seeing him again.”

“First you’ll have to see at least ten other challengers,” Dai said. “They all want to try their hand at solving the mystery now. The next one arrives in two days.”

Everyone let out a loud groan at that, even Empress Mao.

“We’re hosting challengers for at least the next two months. You all better not groan like that every time.”

A lot of Americans came. They were all intrigued by Lord Nathan’s tales of a beautiful Japanese palace and the mystery of twelve princes and princesses who skated every night but never left any evidence of it. First was the Baroness Ashley Wagner, brash and confident. Then came Sir Jason Brown, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Japanese culture and language. He spoke easily in Japanese without stuttering and spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the chef. After Sir Jason left, there weren’t any Americans for a while.

Between Sir Jason and the next American visitors were four other challengers. A low-ranked noble from Singapore who had never left her country before was all too easily persuaded to drink tea laced with their sleeping draught after a few kind words from Miki. A nice Chinese heiress came and befriended Wakaba before leaving empty-handed as well. Then there was the king of Kazakhstan, a few years younger than King Patrick, who only came to “do his country justice”, as he put it. After him was the Russian princess Evgenia Medvedeva. She was energetic, spoke a little shaky Japanese, and snooped around their rooms to try to figure out where they went every night. Shoma would have been mad, but when her three days and nights were over, all that snooping hadn’t helped Princess Evgenia one bit.

Then came the Shibutanis. Maia and Alex Shibutani were self-made American millionaires. They were sleek, fashionable, and outgoing. Alex tried his hand at solving the mystery first, and when he was unsuccessful, Maia took her turn. The Shibutanis were skilled at making everyone feel valued and included. Even though Shoma didn’t take to new people easily, he found himself running around the palace with them and showing them all his favorite nooks and crannies. Ultimately, the Shibutanis were unsuccessful, but they left with invitations from the entire imperial family to come back again, and soon.

The eleventh challenger recognized Shoma from past competitions. His name was Boyang Jin, and he was a Chinese noble and figure skater. He had dominated the junior circuit after Shoma had left, and had moved up to the senior circuit and continued to make waves. Shoma was incredibly jealous. In another life, he and Lord Boyang would have battled for titles and then moved up to the senior circuit together. He couldn’t help but feel a little cheated.

For three agonizing days, Shoma watched Lord Boyang practice his quad lutz. He watched him own the ice in the way only competitive figure skaters could. It made him miss competing more than when he had first been forced to stop. Kanako and Keiji noticed, and must have said something to Dai about it, because Shoma got two sanctioned ice sessions that week.

Lord Boyang was as unsuccessful as the ten challengers before him had been. When he left, he took Shoma’s resentment and bitter memories with him.

If Shoma had thought that those three days were agonizing, he was about to revise his opinion.

“The next challenger is Yuzuru Hanyu,” Dai said over dinner, a week after Lord Boyang had left. The tone with which he said it was very casual. It was the same tone he had used to announce that there would be random people coming to the palace to figure out where they went every night, and there was nothing they could do about it.

“ _ The _ Yuzuru Hanyu?” Keiji repeated, disbelievingly.

“Yuzuru?” Kanako shrieked.

“Oh, Yuzu!” Empress Mao exclaimed delightedly.

“Yes, that Yuzuru Hanyu,” Dai answered. “Rural country boy turned figure skating star. World champion, Olympic champion, Japan’s ace, all that.”

“But why is he coming here?” Satoko asked.

“Why shouldn’t he?”  
“Doesn’t-” Shoma cleared his throat. Everyone was facing him now that he had spoken. This was why he didn’t like talking at meals. “Doesn’t he have better things to do?” Anxiously, he pushed a few bits of rice around his plate, refusing to look up.

When he was much younger, just around eleven, he had shared a podium with Yuzuru Hanyu. Five years later, he had watched his record-breaking performance at the Olympics and his coronation as Olympic champion, and had been determined to one day stand by his side again. Four years had passed since then, and so much had changed. He would never stand on a podium with Yuzuru Hanyu now.

“Well,” Dai answered, graciously saving Shoma from imminent death by awkwardness, “I suppose he doesn’t. You all should be nice to him. I skated with him at the Olympics, and I’m rather fond of him.”

“We haven’t been mean to any of the challengers!” Kanako said defensively. Shoma supposed that was true, but only if you left out the part where they had drugged all of them. Across the table, Satoko dug into her food viciously, attempting to appear innocent but looking guilty instead.

“Satoko,” Dai asked, “do you have something to say?”  
“No,” she said, very definitively.

Dai raised an eyebrow at her, but she refused to say anything more.

“I haven’t seen Yuzu in years!” Kanako exclaimed loudly to Rika, who was sitting directly across from her. “I remember when we moved up to seniors together. We were so excited.”  
“What is he like?” Rika asked.

Kanako thought for a moment. “Well, he’s very thoughtful. Determined. He likes music. He also-” here she laughed fondly- “he also loves to win. Winning is very important to him.”  
“That’s very true,” Dai confirmed. On either side of him, Mao and Miki nodded.

The man, the myth, and the legend Yuzuru Hanyu arrived at the palace the next morning. As the imperial family waited outside to receive him, the air was charged with excitement. Shoma felt tense, not in an angry way, but with a similar sense of anticipation.

Yuzuru appeared over the horizon on an old gray mare. He was wearing a dusty blue cloak and a wide smile. Even though Rika separated them, Shoma could feel Kanako bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

Yuzuru approached, dismounted, and bowed deeply to Dai. “Your Majesty,” he said respectfully. Dai laughed and pulled him in for an embrace. “Hello, Yuzuru. Long time no see.”  
The instant Dai let go, Kanako flew from her place and threw her arms around Yuzuru. “Yuzuru!” she cried. “I’ve missed you!”

Yuzuru laughed and hugged her back tightly. “I’ve missed you too, Kanako.” He greeted Miki and Keiji with a clear degree of familiarity and Rika with the respect she deserved as a member of the imperial family. Shoma braced himself for the inevitable awkward greeting, but instead of bowing and saying “Your Highness”, Yuzuru smiled at him, wide and genuine, and said, “Hello, Shoma.”  
“H-hello,” he squeaked out. He felt himself grow red under Yuzuru’s scrutiny. Instinctively, he bowed, and only realized the absurdity of his action when Satoko stared at him strangely. His face felt like it was on fire.

After a few more awkward moments where Yuzuru looked like he expected Shoma to say more, still with a giant smile on his face, he moved on to greet Satoko. Unlike with Shoma, he bowed and called her by title. Shoma felt like he was missing something, but he didn’t know what.

“Shoma,” Satoko asked as they filed inside the palace, “what was that?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered back. As if he could hear them, Yuzuru glanced backwards from where he was walking with Dai and Empress Mao. When their eyes met, Shoma’s face turned red again. Yuzuru smiled at him. Shoma looked away quickly.

“These next three days are going to be very long for you,” Satoko told him when he had regained enough composure to look her in the eyes again. “I can already tell.”

“Shoma,” Wakaba added, clearly having heard their conversation, “you know you’re performing for him tomorrow, right?”

Terror spread through his veins and must have shown on his face, because Satoko patted him on the back in an attempt at reassurance. “Am I?”

“Yes, it’s your turn again.”  
“Oh no,” he groaned. “No, I can’t do it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Satoko scolded. “You can do this, and you’ll impress him. You’re very good, Shoma. Attack this like you attack everything else.”  
“You already performed for King Patrick, and he’s just as decorated as Yuzuru,” Wakaba pointed out. “How is this any different?”

“But I didn’t care about impressing King Patrick!” Shoma protested. That was entirely the wrong thing to say, because his sisters immediately pounced on it.

“You could probably skate laps around the rink and he’d be impressed,” Satoko said, but she was drowned out by Wakaba’s question of “And why do you want to impress Yuzuru, huh?” and Marin’s exclamation of “Shoma, that’s so cute!”  
Dai, Mao, Yuzuru, and his older siblings had all drifted ahead, leaving Shoma as the oldest in the slower-moving group. His younger siblings congregated around him now, giggling and gossiping. Sota appeared by his side in the spot where Wakaba had been thirty seconds ago with a mischievous smile on his face. “So, Shoma…” he started, but Shoma refused to have any of it. He sprinted away from his siblings. In turn, they ran after him. The sounds of their shoes thundered against the smooth tile floor.

“Be careful!” Dai called as Shoma pushed past. Right on cue, Shoma tripped on nothing and fell hard. Behind him, everyone gasped, then started asking if he was okay. Shoma plastered his face onto the floor and wished to be swallowed whole. Even if Yuzuru Hanyu hadn’t been there in all of his glory, he would have been so embarrassed.

Gentle hands touched his back. “Are you all right?” a voice asked. it sounded like Keiji, but much nicer. Usually, when Shoma embarrassed himself, Keiji just laughed at him.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled into the floor. Finally, he pushed himself upright, accepting help from the hand that was attached to the disembodied voice. When he was finally standing straight again, he realized that the person who had helped him up was not Keiji, but Yuzuru. If Shoma’s face had been hot before, now it felt like he had pushed it directly into a pile of fiery coals.

Behind the rest of his older siblings, Satoko shook her head. Shoma could almost hear her repeating, “This is going to be a long three days."

* * *

Shoma snuck away from his studying session in favor of hiding in the palace gardens. He brought his arithmetic book with him to keep up the pretense that he was going to study. There was a nice gazebo by a little pond, and he set the book on a nearby bench before rolling up the hem of his pants and sitting down by the edge of the pond. The water was cool on his feet, taking away some heat from the sunlight shining down on his legs. He tipped his head back and breathed in deeply.

“Shoma, aren’t you supposed to be studying?” Kanako’s voice rang out loud and clear. He snapped to attention abruptly, the brief moment of peace gone. Yuzuru was standing next to her. Distantly, he remembered Kanako promising him a tour of the palace.

“Um…” he started. “Yes?”

Kanako laughed and made her way over to him, Yuzuru in tow. Instead of scolding him, as Keiji or Miki probably would have, she pushed up the hem of her skirt and sat down next to him. For some reason, instead of sitting next to her, Yuzuru sat on Shoma’s other side.

“Is this your favorite part of the palace?” Yuzuru asked.

“No, my favorite part is my bed,” Shoma answered, and immediately regretted it. Kanako snickered into her hand. Yuzuru laughed too.

“Shoma likes to sleep,” Kanako explained. She kicked her foot gently against his, scooped up some water from the pond, and splashed him.

“Hey!” He splashed her back. Suddenly, he felt water soaking the left side of his shirt. When he turned, Yuzuru was grinning at him.

_ Two can play this game _ , Shoma thought vindictively, and splashed him. That started off a two-on-one water fight that, fortunately for Shoma, turned three-way when he waded further into the pond. Before long, all three of them were soaked. Shoma’s pants felt like they had gained ten pounds when he finally clambered out of the pond and trudged back into the palace to change clothes.

“Why are you walking like that?” Kanako laughed. Shoma was awkwardly waddling with his arms held away from his sides, dripping water all over the floor.

“I’m cold and wet,” he said.

“Well, hurry up, or you won’t be able to change before dinner!” At that, he sped up. Food was always an incentive for Shoma.

After dinner, Dai, Empress Mao, and Yuzuru went off to a side room for a private conversation. Sota and Kanako, who were both the most daring and the most nosy of the twelve of them, pressed their ears to the door. Kaori, Yuna, Rika, and Wakaba stood close by, not quite as nosy, but nosy enough. Shoma and Satoko planted themselves a few feet down the hallway, where they could hear the conversation if it got loud enough. Keiji and Marin conversed quietly at the end of the hall, pretending to be better than Sota and Kanako because of the physical distance between them and the door. Before Kanako had even pressed her ear to the door, Miki had rolled her eyes and left, an uncomfortable Mai following with the excuse that she was going to write Lord Nathan a letter.

An hour and a half later, all ten of them were sitting on the floor. Sota and Kanako were still listening avidly, but Shoma was beginning to fall asleep. His head was already on Satoko’s shoulder, and it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. One moment he was trying to hear what Sota was whispering to Yuna, and the next he was being bodily hauled by Wakaba and Keiji down the hallway and around the corner with his eyes only half-open.

“What’s going on?” he asked, realizing that he must have missed something, but was immediately shushed by Satoko. As he blinked, he realized that the four of them were flattened into a gap behind a decorative screen. 

“Dai finished his conversation with Mao and Yuzuru, but Sota didn’t give us enough warning beforehand, so we had to make do,” Keiji whispered.

Now that Shoma was fully awake, Wakaba shifted her arm out from under his shoulders. However, the screen covering them was in a very precarious position, and her movement brushed against it and disturbed its equilibrium. The four of them watched in abject horror as it swayed and then slowly, agonizingly, fell with a clang that echoed around the hallway. In a moment Dai was standing in front of the toppled screen, arms crossed.

“And what are the four of you doing there?” he asked.

“Playing hide-and-seek!” Wakaba answered immediately. Shoma and Satoko reached down and pulled the screen back up, but not quickly enough to cover their brother’s raised eyebrow and pursed lips. However, they had pulled it up too quickly, and the screen fell again. This time Empress Mao and Yuzuru were on the other side as well.

“You’re going to break that,” Dai said matter-of-factly.

“I think it’s already broken,” Keiji admitted.

After a few more minutes of staring at them disbelievingly, Dai sent them off to their rooms. Kanako and Sota were already in Shoma and Keiji’s rooms. The two actual culprits had made it to home base scotch-free. 

Kanako was already prepared with the tray of tea and cookies laced with a sleeping draught. She made Shoma promise to wait for her, but sent their other ten siblings off while she went to Yuzuru’s room. She came back fifteen minutes later with a frown on her face. “Yuzuru shooed me out,” she told him.

“He accepted the tray though, right?” he asked.

“Yes. I saw him drink some of the tea. I hope that’s enough.”

Shoma shrugged. “Well, I don’t think we can do anything else, then.”  
“I’ll check if he’s in his room when we get back,” Kanako said. “Okay, let’s go.”  
Keiji’s bed was already shoved against the side of the room. Shoma pushed his foot down firmly against one of the tiles, and the floor sank down into the familiar staircase that would open up before the silver forest. The walk to the lake with only one of his siblings instead of the usual eleven was much more quiet and peaceful. Because it was so quiet, both of them jumped when there was a loud cracking sound.

They were in the middle of the silver forest. In the past months that they had walked this route, Shoma had seen maybe two birds and a rabbit. They had never been loud.

“Where did that sound come from?” he asked.

Kanako looked around, and after a few moments her eyes caught on something. She walked over to a tree behind them and fingered the end of a broken branch. “These branches are awfully brittle,” she said. “They must break easily.”  
That explanation made sense. They continued on through the gold forest and finally made it to the lake. Everyone was already on the ice, so Shoma rushed to tie on his skates and join them.

“What routine are you performing tomorrow?” Sota asked. Shoma slowed down and pressed his hands to his face, squishing his cheeks and lips together. Sota slowed down alongside him and waited. “Come on, Sho. What are you going to skate?”

“I don’t know,” Shoma fretted. “Are any of my programs good enough to show an Olympic and two-time world champion?”

Sota rolled his eyes. “Shoma, you’re one of the best skaters in our family.” Yuna, passing by in a blur, nodded. “All of your programs are good enough.”  
“Do your loco loco loco routine,” Kanako called from across the lake. “He’d like that.”

Shoma had been working on the ‘loco loco loco’ routine, as Kanako and the rest of his siblings called it, for about a year now. He hadn’t performed it for any of the challengers yet, preferring to stick to shorter routines set to popular songs. He liked it a lot, even the screamy part that inspired the name his family had given it. It was a technically difficult program, but if he skated it cleanly, it would be impressive. And he badly wanted to impress Yuzuru.

“Okay.” Shoma nodded, rolled his shoulders, took a deep breath. He had a plan. It was all going to work out.

The rest of the ice session seemed to go by in a blur. He did a couple run throughs of his routine, practiced his quad flip a few times, and then Satoko was dragging him off the ice. They traipsed up through the forests and up the staircase, but Kanako refused to let any of their siblings out the door until she had checked that Yuzuru was in bed. She came back satisfied with what she saw and finally, finally, Shoma’s siblings left his bedroom.

* * *

The ‘loco loco loco’ program was a disaster. The quad flip was the first jump in his layout. It was fine. Shaky, but fine. The triple salchow at the end, however, was not. He didn’t even land it, just fell on his hip with the rest of his leg slamming into the ice after it. He got up right after, pushing through his choreographic sequence, and then the music finally stopped. He skated off the ice with a grimace on his face. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Shoma’s entire side felt like one giant bruise.

“Are you all right?” Mai asked, worry all over her face.

Shoma thought about it. Tested his leg a little. Everything seemed fine, it just hurt. “I’m fine,” he told her honestly. “I think I just won’t skate at the lake tonight.” He dredged up a smile that didn’t feel quite genuine, but it was enough to satisfy Mai.

He put on his skate guards and hobbled over to the imperial box. Immediately, Keiji came over to him and began quizzing him on his condition.  _ Are you all right? Does your side hurt?  _ Then, in a much lower voice:  _ are you planning to skate tonight?  _ Shoma answered  _ yes _ ,  _ a little _ , and  _ no _ , answers which Keiji accepted. Then his brother tugged him to his feet. “We’re finding you an ice pack,” he declared, and pulled Shoma into the palace. Shoma let it happen, but he had wanted to see Yuzuru’s reaction.

When he said as much to Keiji, his brother said, “Shoma, Yuzuru thought you were amazing.”

“Oh,” Shoma said quietly, not really believing it. “He did?”

“Shoma,” Keiji said exasperatedly, “of course he did. I was sitting in the box with him the whole time.”

“Oh. I’m glad.”

Keiji handed him an ice pack and sat down next to him. Everyone, including the servants, was outside, watching the performances or Yuzuru or both. Now that they were inside and away from the crowd, it was quiet and peaceful. Shoma liked spending time with Keiji. It was calming. Spending time with his other siblings, even individually, was not. He loved them, but they could be a bit much.

They sat together in a comfortable silence. Neither of them looked at the clock, but when the palace suddenly grew loud and they could hear their siblings’ voices, they knew the performances were over. Keiji took the ice pack from him and disappeared into the depths of the palace to return it.

Keiji never returned, but Satoko appeared and dragged him down to the dinner table. Everyone was already seated. Clearly he was late. As usual.

There were only two spots open at the dinner table, and neither of them were his usual spot. Satoko’s was empty, and Marin was sitting in Shoma’s chair. This left the chair next to Yuzuru open. While Shoma was analyzing the seating situation, Satoko sat in her usual spot, leaving him with no choice. He sat down next to Yuzuru.

“You were amazing out there today!” Yuzuru gushed. Across the table, Yuna grinned knowingly at him.

When Shoma took too long to answer, Sota elbowed him sharply in the ribs. His hand came up instinctively to cup his side. “Thank you,” he mumbled, nodding in Yuzuru’s general direction and refusing to make eye contact.

Yuzuru chattered away, drawing everyone into easy conversation. It became clear to Shoma that all his siblings loved him. He felt himself clamming up and focusing more on his food than the people around him. He suddenly felt very tired. Whenever someone said something to him, he simply hummed in response. Dinner probably only took an hour, but to Shoma it felt like ages.

After dinner, everyone collected into the library to look at Marin’s photographs. Shoma didn’t really know what made good photography, but he enjoyed looking at her portraits of their family. Everyone had two portraits: one taken by Marin and another taken by the imperial photographer. Shoma’s official portrait featured him in a suit with an awkward smile on his face, but in Marin’s his smile was wide and genuine. Sota had just told him a joke, and it had actually been funny.

There were other pictures besides individual portraits: mostly group photos and some from when they had used to compete. There was Dai clutching his gold world championships medal, Satoko standing next to Kanako on the Four Continents podium, and most prominently, Shizuka smiling triumphantly with a bouquet and her Olympic gold medal.

All chatter stopped as they gathered around her picture. The mood instantly turned somber.

“She was a wonderful mentor,” Yuzuru said contemplatively. “And a wonderful skater.”

Just staring at the photo made old wounds open up in Shoma’s chest. It was a familiar pain. After three years, it still hadn’t faded. It was probably familiar to Yuzuru too. Shizuka had personally taught him and had funded his skating after the disastrous earthquake that had destroyed his home rink six years ago. Shoma remembered seeing him at the official state funeral, but the memories weren’t clear. He had been focused on other things.

“She was a wonderful sister,” Miki said quietly. She squeezed Himawari close to her.

“And a wonderful empress,” Dai added. The responsibilities of emperor seemed to weigh him down heavily and added years to his age. Mao wound a comforting arm around his waist. After another moment of respectful silence, Dai moved on. The rest of the family followed, but Shoma stayed and stared up at Shizuka’s photo some more. He had been sixteen when she had died. Sixteen when Dai had banned them all from competition. Shizuka had always been kind, steady, caring. She had left to watch Dai and Yuzuru in Sochi, and she had come back in a casket. Sometimes Shoma thought about her and realized that he could barely remember how her voice had sounded.

The library door slammed, startling him. Shoma was alone with the books and the family photos. Or, he would have been, except for Yuzuru, who was waiting patiently for him by the door. This surprised Shoma. “Ready to go, Your Highness?” Yuzuru asked.

He nodded. Yuzuru held the door open for him, and after Shoma passed through, pressed his hand to the small of his back as he exited too. Not expecting the sudden contact, Shoma tensed, but it felt nice. He forced himself to relax. Yuzuru kept his hand there as they walked back to Shoma’s room.

“Your quad flip is very impressive,” Yuzuru told him.

“So is your quad loop,” Shoma replied. He had watched the footage of that first ratified quad loop over and over again, studying the jump until his eyes blurred and burned. It wowed him every time.

Yuzuru nodded. Smiled sheepishly. It occurred to Shoma that, despite all his achievements, Yuzuru was still somehow very humble.

They stopped outside the door to Shoma’s room. Sota was propping the door open, hand on his hip. Behind him, Shoma could see the rest of his siblings sprawled on the floor or his or Keiji’s beds. All of their faces were turned towards Shoma and Yuzuru expectantly.

Yuzuru bowed to him. “Good night, Shoma.” He began to walk away. Shoma realized that this was the perfect opportunity to give him the laced food.

“Wait!” he called. Yuzuru turned back. The light in his eyes was hopeful. But for what? “Would you like some tea? Or cookies?”

For a brief moment, Yuzuru’s expression flickered with disappointment, but quickly returned to normal. “Sure,” he said, and began walking back towards Shoma.

“Smooth,” Sota whispered.

Satoko appeared in the doorway bearing the tray with cookies and tea like a trophy. Yuzuru smiled at her, took a cup and a cookie, and said, “I’ll just enjoy these in my room.” He smiled and waved at the rest of their siblings. “Good night, Your Highnesses.”

“Good night!” everyone called back. Shoma watched Yuzuru disappear down the hall.

Half an hour passed, and then Kanako got too impatient to wait any longer. Shoma’s siblings picked themselves up off the floor and his bed, and together they traipsed down the stairwell and through the silver forest. While they were walking through the gold forest, there was a loud  _ crack! _ similar to the night before. Wakaba, startled, shrieked. “What was that?”

“Just a branch breaking,” Kanako reassured her. “A branch broke yesterday night when Shoma and I were walking to the lake.”

“If you say so,” Wakaba said incredulously, but she didn’t say anything more.

Shoma’s hip and leg still felt sore, so while his siblings skated, he made himself comfortable under a golden tree. He watched Keiji for a little while, then his attention switched to Miki practicing her quad, and then he watched Yuna chase Kaori around the lake. When he got bored of watching his siblings, he began picking flowers. The grass around the lake and running through the forests was practically littered with them. They were bright colors, orange and purple and pink, and once he had a handful, he inspected them closely.

Miki plopped down next to him on the grass, slightly out of breath and still in her skates. “Can I show you something?” she asked. Shoma offered her the entire handful of flowers, but she only picked out two: one pink and one purple. With her fingernail, she poked a hole through the stem of the purple one and threaded the stem of the pink one through. “Can I have another one?”  
Shoma handed her an orange one that time. She repeated the same process, punching out a hole and then threading through the orange flower. Shoma watched her intently.

“Here,” she said, and handed him the string of flowers. “You try.”  
He tried. It was more fiddly than he expected, but he was successful. Miki smiled at him when he held up the flowers triumphantly. “Keep going, and later I’ll show you how to turn it into a crown,” she promised. Then she headed back to the lake and resumed skating. Shoma kept going.

It felt like only a couple of minutes had passed when Miki was standing in front of him again. The rest of their siblings were already disappearing into the gold forest, on the way back to their beds. “How far have you gotten?” she asked cheerfully.

He held up the flowers for her to look at. He had only been able to add a couple more because he kept punching holes too big or splitting stems entirely or pulling the flowers too far through.

“You’ll get faster,” she assured him. “If you do it tomorrow too, you should have enough to go around your head. Come on, let’s go.”

Shoma dropped the string of flowers and the rest of his bouquet next to where he was sitting and stood up. He and Miki walked back leisurely through the forests until they heard arguing, at which point Miki sped up. Not wanting to be left behind, Shoma sped up too.

Rika and Sota were yelling at one another. Only Kanako was watching, so Keiji must have already taken all the younger girls back to the palace.

“Why can’t you just admit that you stepped on my shoe?” Rika demanded.

“Because I didn’t!” Sota yelled.

Miki grabbed both of them by the shoulder and started dragging them towards the staircase. “This is a ridiculous subject to argue about,” she said. “It’s late. In the morning you’ll be able to see how ridiculous this is.”

“There was no one behind her!” Sota exclaimed.

“Well, someone stepped on me!” Rika shot back.

Sota puffed up. “I didn’t-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Miki said firmly. Her tone made it clear that they better stop arguing. Shoma followed the three of them plus Kanako back to the castle quietly while Rika simmered, Sota sulked, and his eldest sisters commiserated.

* * *

Shoma didn’t know why he did it, but as he and Keiji wound their way through the room to their usual table in the library, he sat down next to Yuzuru and left his brother to walk alone. Across the room, Satoko eyed him curiously.

“Hello,” Yuzuru greeted him cheerfully. He had earbuds in and a book in his hands but had still noticed Shoma’s arrival.

“Hello,” Shoma said quickly. He pulled out his arithmetic textbook and began the homework he should have started two days ago. In the silence stretching between them, Shoma worked his way through problems comfortably. He could hear his siblings chatting quietly on the other side of the room. It was a pleasant, calming atmosphere.

“Do you want to listen to music?”

Shoma looked up. Yuzuru had taken out an earbud and, smiling brightly, was now offering it to him. Hesitantly, he accepted the earbud and placed it in his ear.

The lyrics were in English, but they were familiar. “This was your short program music for this season,” Shoma realized. He remembered watching the routine grow and develop over several competitions. It had been all swagger and style that his sisters had sighed over and had made something pool uncomfortably in his gut.

If possible, Yuzuru’s smile grew wider. “You watched my performances?”

That was an absolutely ludicrous question. “Of course!” Shoma exclaimed. “I watched all of them!” That sounded a little obsessive. In the brightness of Yuzuru’s smile, Shoma’s face heated up, and he quickly tacked on, “With the rest of my family. I watched them with the rest of my family.”

“He watched them on his own a lot,” Keiji testified, appearing out of nowhere. He was smiling mischievously. “Sometimes he made me watch them with him.”

Shoma felt absolutely mortified. His face was on fire. Next to him, Yuzuru was smiling so widely that his cheeks seemed like they would split open at any moment. In Shoma’s ear, the guitar was going wild, just like his thoughts.

“Is that true?” Yuzuru asked.

“I really like your skating,” Shoma mumbled. Unable to face Yuzuru’s scrutiny, he picked up his pencil and tried to focus on doing his arithmetic problems again. He felt Yuzuru’s eyes practically boring through the side of his face. Slowly, Yuzuru’s hand crept into his peripheral vision, crossed his paper, and took the pencil away. Shoma was forced to look at him.

“I really like your skating too,” Yuzuru said sincerely. “And I really like you. When I figure out where you and your siblings go every night-”

“If,” Shoma interrupted. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest, and not just because of Yuzuru’s confession. Yuzuru couldn’t have followed them. He had always accepted the tray of tea and cookies, both of which were laced with the sleeping draught Kanako had procured before this mess with the challengers had ever started. And even if he hadn’t consumed them, Shoma had eleven siblings who came with him to the lake every night. Someone would have noticed Yuzuru during the past two nights.

“ _ When _ ,” Yuzuru repeated. “When I figure out where you and your siblings go every night, I will receive someone’s hand in marriage, won’t I?”

“That is what my brother promised,” Shoma answered, not sure where this was going.

“Then I’ll ask for your hand in marriage.” 

Shoma felt his mouth drop open. Right on cue, a new song started playing in the earbud. It was a familiar song. In fact, a Canadian envoy had choreographed him a routine with it. He had only ever performed the routine once, for the king of Kazakhstan, but the performances that day had been broadcast on national television. It was a song about lovesickness and heartbreak, gentle and sweet, like the way Yuzuru was smiling at him now.

Yuzuru saw the recognition on his face. “I watch every imperial broadcast,” he admitted. He was twirling Shoma’s pencil between his fingers. “This song really caught my attention. I thought it was an interesting choice for you to skate to.”

Shoma was still stuck on the whole ‘Yuzuru Hanyu likes me and wants to marry me’ thing. “I-” he started. He wasn’t sure what to say next. “I really like you too.” Some sort of impulse was encouraging him to say something else. “And  _ if _ you do figure out where we go every night, I’ll accept your marriage proposal.” Refusing to meet Yuzuru’s eyes, he pried his pencil out of the other man’s fingers and continued working on his arithmetic problems until lunch.

After lunch were more skating performances in Yuzuru’s honor. He insisted on Shoma sitting next to him instead of Miki, who gave in easily and gossiped with Kanako the whole time. Shoma caught them smiling mischievously at him several times.

Dinner was no better. All his siblings chose not to talk among themselves and instead watched Shoma and Yuzuru interact intently. Even Dai watched them with clear interest written across his face, but he said nothing. One of his siblings, and Shoma was willing to bet on Keiji, had obviously told him about their morning conversation.

It all resulted in Sota and Wakaba forcefully shoving him out of his own room that night with the tray of tea and cookies in his arms. His siblings cheerfully waved him off with threats not to let him back in until he had forced it onto Yuzuru, who accepted the entire tray with a gracious smile and promptly shooed him off. Shoma tramped back to his room feeling like he had wasted time.

“That was fast,” Kanako commented when he arrived. Then she declared, “Okay, let’s go!” and whisked the whole lot of them off to the lake. Kanako was a whirlwind sometimes.

They reached the lake without incident. No branches cracked in either the silver or gold forest, no one stepped on Rika’s foot, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Shoma found himself looking over his shoulder several times, scanning his surroundings. Yuzuru had seemed so sure that he would find out where they went every night. This was his last opportunity to do it. But nothing happened, and so Shoma forced himself to relax. 

He settled himself under the same tree as the night before and picked up the flower chain. Now that he knew how to string them together, the process went by much faster. When Miki took a break from skating, she told him that he had done a great job. Then, with a few nimble movements that Shoma couldn’t entirely follow, she connected the ends together and draped their creation on his head. She adjusted it until it went around his forehead and just above his ears instead of lying on his hair.

“There you go!” his oldest sister exclaimed, hands on her hips and smiling proudly. “You look great!”

As Miki returned to skating, Shoma began picking more flowers. He was thinking of putting them by Shizuka’s grave later. If Dai asked where he had gotten them from, he could just say the market. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough time to gather a sizeable bouquet. Satoko waited patiently while he set down the new batch of flowers and disentangled the crown from his hair. She rounded Yuna and Kaori up too, and the four of them walked through the forest and up the stairs together.

“We made it,” Satoko said thoughtfully.

“Made what?” Shoma asked.

“The three days and nights,” she answered. “Yuzuru hasn’t found us out.”

“Oh. You’re right.” The realization startled him. He had been so convinced that Yuzuru would appear and figure everything out that he hadn’t realized that Yuzuru had never done anything of the sort. “I would like to bring him to the lake, though,” he admitted. When Satoko turned to him with an incredulous expression, he said hurriedly, “If we could.”

Satoko considered him. “If we could,” she repeated. “Yes, I suppose that would be nice.”

* * *

“Yuzuru, have you figured my siblings’ secret out?” Dai asked cheerfully across the breakfast table. It was clear that he wasn’t expecting an affirmative answer, but rather thought that he would enjoy one last breakfast with a good friend.

Yuzuru looked up from his plate and, confidently, said “Yes.”  
Fourteen heads snapped in his direction, including Dai and Empress Mao’s. He swallowed the food in his mouth and put a bundle of cloth that had been sitting on his lap before onto the table. He opened it and pulled out a silver branch.

Shoma froze. His heart sank.

“Every night,” Yuzuru began, “their Imperial Highnesses go to His Majesty Keiji and His Majesty Shoma’s room, push a tile that opens up the floor, and descend a staircase. First they walk through a silver forest.” He held up the silver branch, set it down by his plate, and took out a golden branch from the cloth bundle. Marin gasped. “Then they walk through a golden forest. After that, they reach a frozen lake. It’s the largest lake I’ve ever seen, and it’s surrounded by colorful flowers.” He pulled out the flower crown that Miki and Shoma had made together over the past two nights.

Something clanged on the floor, but Shoma paid it no attention. His heartbeat was loud in his ears. Panic was rising in his chest. Yuzuru stood up and placed the flower crown around Shoma’s head. As he did so, Shoma stared up at him with terror coursing through his veins. Yuzuru had done as he had said he would do. He had found them out.

“They skate on the lake every night,” Yuzuru continued. “That’s why their boots wear out so fast.”

No one spoke. Shoma looked down at his plate. All their precautions, and they had been found out anyways. They had explicitly gone against Dai’s command. Next to him, Sota’s hand was shaking.

Dai sighed, long, loud, and frustrated. “Of course that’s how they do it.” Strangely, he sounded fond. “Shoma, stop staring at your plate like that. Miki, pick your fork up from the ground. Kanako, wipe that look off your face. All of you, look at me.”  
Shoma looked at his eldest brother, the emperor of Japan, one of the most powerful men in the world, a man they had disobeyed. Dai didn’t look angry or even disappointed. In fact, he looked amused. “From your reactions, I’m guessing Yuzuru got it right?”

Slowly, everyone nodded.

“Well, then. I should’ve known you would never obey me when I commanded that you could only skate once a week.” Dai smiled, a little sadly. “We’ll talk about changes to the schedule later. For now, I think our challenger is waiting for his reward.”

Shoma’s heart did something weird in his chest. The table turned towards Yuzuru expectantly.

“I promised that any challenger who figured out where my siblings went at night would be given the hand of any that they so chose. Yuzuru, which of my siblings will you marry?”

“Shoma, if he’ll have me.” Yuzuru said his name as confidently as he had told his story.

Everyone turned to him, waiting for his answer.

“I did say that I would marry you if you figured out where we went each night,” Shoma said. “And I’m keeping that promise.”

Shoma liked Yuzuru as a skater, but more importantly, he liked him as a person. He wasn’t sure if that was enough to bind them together for the rest of their lives, but he was willing to try. Around him, his siblings let out relieved, and in some cases ecstatic, sighs. It would have been extremely embarrassing for the entirety of the imperial family if he had outright refused Yuzuru.

Yuzuru took Shoma’s hand in his. “I’ll be the best suitor you’ve ever had,” he promised.

“I’ve never had a suitor, so that should be easy,” Shoma assured him. To his left, Sota snickered. Conversations began picking up again. In the rush of familiar noise and the affection in Yuzuru’s smile, Shoma relaxed and, for the first time since the whole challenger business had started, felt truly at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick summary of the 12 Dancing Princesses: every night, the twelve princesses dance their hearts out in a secret room in the castle, which is why their dancing slippers wear out so fast. The king doesn't know this and wants to know how it happens, so he sets the challenge. Each challenger is given three days and three nights to figure out where they go. Many princes come and try, but aren't successful because the princesses give them wine to make them fall asleep. A soldier coming home from war passes through a forest and receives a cloak of invisibility from an old woman, and uses it to trail the princesses to the ballroom. Near the ballroom, he steals branches from a gold tree, silver tree, and one made of diamonds. On the third night he steals a golden cup. The next morning, he presents all of his evidence to the king, and for his reward he chooses to marry the oldest sister to become heir to the throne.
> 
> For your ease: Imperial Family Team Japan is as follows - Daisuke, his wife Mao, Miki (& Himawari), Kanako, Keiji, Rika Hongo, Shoma, Satoko, Sota, Mai, Wakaba, Kaori, Yuna Shiraiwa, and Marin Honda.


End file.
